Cuz Sherlock is by far my favourite incarnation of the consulting detective, although to be fair I have only seen 3, and I have so much respect for the writers and the way they’ve updated and twisted the stories and left in so many little gags for fans of the books and also made it so impossible for us to know what they’re going to do, even when we’ve read the stories and know how Arthur Conan Doyle did it, we know that they’re not gonna make it that simple and it’s gonna be awesome and why why why is it still more than 24 hours away?? Needless to say I’m excited and worried and emotional and my tumblr is just full of reblogs of things like

or

or

or
(Clicking on those images will send to you their creators)

And more but if you’re that interested you can just go look yourself (it’s here)

I’m gonna be really upset when I have to wait forever (maybe literally) for more of this fantastic tv series. It’s just remarkable, the acting, the writing, what they’ve done with the character is phenomenal and they deserve so much credit for it. Also I only found out like 2 weeks ago that Mark Gatiss, one of the co-creators and writers (along with Steven Moffat), is also the actor for Mycroft Holmes and I love his portrayal of him!! Also his tweets are fun!!

To cope with the devastating loss of Sherlock from my tv screen (after only 3 weeks, stupid short, brilliant, series) I decided that it was finally time to complete my collection of Sherlock canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s a collection that started in 2009 after I saw and adored the Robert Downey Jr Holmes film. I knew of Sherlock Holmes before obviously, not just for his deerstalker hat and “Elementary, my dear Watson” (Which, incidentally, he never actually said in canon) but mainly because my then favourite character (it’s now under debate) Dr Gregory House was based on Holmes. After watching the film and loving it, especially the relationship between Holmes and Watson, I decided that I’d read some of the books, since it was near my birthday it was easy enough to get Aislinn to buy me some, she hit chapters and bought me 3 collections with plenty of stories in them, although there was some overlap between them. It wasn’t an issue though, since I still haven’t read all of them, two and a half years later. I am getting very close though, with only something like 6 stories out of the 43 she gave me left to go. I’ve also picked up all of the full length novels over the years and read them.

The reason I find it such slow going to read them is mainly down to the oldness of them, the language is a bit different from what’s common now, obviously and I normally have to focus a bit more to follow the story, since it requires more concentration I tend to go for something lighter if I’m reading right before I go to sleep, so Sherlock can get shelved for a while, and it’s only when the mood strikes me that I pick him up again.

Thankfully, I now own every single one ever!! Cuz I went on hunt to find the two collections that I was missing bits of and realised that it would be cheaper to just buy everything in one gigantic volume (seriously it’s huge ) and then I wouldn’t have to go hunting round wondering which book had which stories in it for when I needed and emergency reading of The Empty House just to remind myself that the falls might not be the end. So now I have them all and it’s great and I’m really happy. Also it was only like 9 euro which is awesome

As more Reichenbach preparation, I watched The Final Problem in the Granada tv series, which my dad bought for me on DVD recently. This adaption of the books differs from the more recent ones in that it follows the books pretty closely. It does it very well, but it’s not nearly as exciting, because it’s predictable. Jeremy Brett is a very iconic portrayal of Holmes though, and I’ve enjoyed the episodes I’ve seen.

I’ve yet to delve into the Basil Rathbone films, but I think it’s only a matter of time before I investigate these as well, since Holmes *is* the most portrayed character ever it seems a shame to only see a few adaptions, when I enjoy them so much.

My favourite thing about the modern ones though is that they can go into the exploration or the bromance between Holmes and Watson, something that just didn’t happen in the books. The film captured this wonderfully with little exchanges like
“Watson: Get that out of my face
Holmes: It’s not in your face, it’s in my hand
Watson: Get what’s in your hand *out* of my face”
and also the way it showed the reluctance Holmes had to meet Watson’s fiancé and accept that his best friend, only real friend, was leaving him.

It’s also a dynamic I enjoy in House, although I am a firm House/Wilson shipper and always will be, whereas I’m not so sure about Holmes/Watson.

The BBC series addresses it most directly since it’s set in modern London and gay couples do actually exist openly, so everyone assumes they are one. I think Aislinn’s favourite quote from A Scandal in Belgravia is probably
“Watson: For the record, if anyone out there still cares — I’m not actually gay.”
Martin Freeman’s performance is totally awesome, I love how in the most recent episode, he just can’t be bothered denying it, you can see the emotions flicker on his face and the thought process when someone assumes like
“No.. we’re not actually, oh forget it no one listens to me anyway, may as well just accept their assumptions”
Apparently Freeman is strong in the Falls and will bring people to tears so I’m excited about that, if not about the tears.

With both Martin Freeman and Jude Law (Watson in the film) Watson is played as much more of an equal to Sherlock, not intellectually of course, only Moriarty and Mycroft can really make that claim, but in terms of being a real partner and not just a sidekick. Both Watsons are also brilliant at playing off their Holmes’, It’s awesome.

Speaking of Holmses, I can’t let this post go without mentioning Robert Downey Jr and Benedict Cumberbatch more. They both do fantastic jobs of bringing the detective to life. They make him snappy and fantastic and hilarious and they’re both really hot which helps and they’re just insane!!

Just a few more things for me to flail wildly about before I give up and just accept that I will never adequately express my love for these things with words…

1) Andrew Scott as Moriarty. This man is Moriarty as he’s never been done before, rather than the old, sedate maths professor with the fantastic brain who is secretly dealing with all his criminal stuff on the side, this is a young, manic, insane Moriarty who’s frightening and unpredictable (“Sorry boys, I’m *so* changeable !”) and intense and when he says it, you really do believe that he will “burn the HEART out of you” or “make you into shoes”
His big scene so far was amazing, heart in the mouth confrontation where he shows that he’s not just frustrated by Sherlock, but fascinated by him as well and loves messing with him
“Sherlock Holmes: What if I were to just shoot you now? Right now?
Jim Moriarty: Well, then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face. Because I’d be surprised, Sherlock, really I would, and just a little bit… disappointed. And of course, you wouldn’t be able to cherish it for very long. “
The fact that he’d be disappointed, shows that he’s expecting something from Sherlock, that he respects him.. in a weird way.
It’s creepy and unpredictable and it didn’t fade from anybody’s mind in the year and a half before the cliffhanger in it was resolved. Whatever The writers have done with the Falls, this guy is definitely the actor to do it justice.

2 Is the use of text in the show. For phone screens and blog posts to be shown to the audience, but mainly when Sherlock is doing his thing, we get a little glimpse into his thought process, all of the tiny flashes that he’s picking up while the rest of the room has gotten about as far as “okay, it’s a man” It’s fantastic and one of the cleverest things about the series, IMO. Cuz when he explains it then, you saw him noticing, rather than him just reeling off “I saw this and it meant that” which is the best that a book can do.

It’s just by far the best TV show I’ve seen in a very long time. And I feel bad for the film, because they did this new and exciting adaption of the stories, and then a year later the TV show came along and did an even newer even more exciting version, which, in my head at any rate, kind of blew theirs out of the water.
Even when I went to see the second film there before Christmas I was disappointed, because it wasn’t as good as the first and because I didn’t have as much admiration for the writers. Not that I’m trying to be insulting, I really do love what they’ve done and I have a huge amount of respect for the work that they, along with everyone else involved in it, have put into the film which I did enjoy a whole lot. it’s just that as soon as Mycroft (played by the awesome Stephen Fry, something else that would have been more awesome if not for how much I love Mark Gatiss) mentioned Reichenbach early in the film, I knew how it was gonna play out in the end, even if the plot to get to that point was completely different. Whereas in Sherlock I’ve known for months that it was going to be Reichenbach tomorrow, and I’m still completely guessing.

If I let this rest for a few minutes and then came back I’m sure I’d have thought of 500 other little details that I could mention and praise about the show, but I would definitely advise anyone to watch it. It’s fantastic if you’ve read the books like I have, or if you haven’t like Aislinn, or if you’ve seen lots of other Holmes adaptions, like my dad. It’s just amazing.
Also if you know a Sherlock fan, offer them plenty of emotional support tomorrow, and don’t even dream of interrupting them after 9.00!!

I might post again after tomorrow with my views on the finale, but it’s more likely that I’ll be in deep mourning and incapable of stringing a sentence together, or indeed successfully completing my calculus exam on Monday morning. I don’t think “All Sherlocked out” is a valid excuse though… pity.And what other way could I possibly leave this than
“Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

When I was getting really stressed about because I was worried about my leaving cert, my favourite teacher spent a lot of her time talking to me and trying to stop me from panicking. I’m very lucky in that I’m smart enough to get away with being as lazy as I am, and her method of calming me down mainly consisted of reminding me that I was gonna do pretty well even with little effort and then I’d be in college doing subjects I actually want to do. I’m very grateful to her for being willing to talk to me, and also I’m grateful that she knew me well enough to know the best way to talk to me. While I was still quite worried about the exams, she did help a lot, and even when my exams weren’t going as well as I’d hoped I was never worried about getting into the college (the benefits of aiming for a fairly low points course).

Then of course it turned out that I’d been kind of worrying about nothing, I was fortunate enough to end up with a very good leaving cert. I got into my first course and I also got the thing that was stressing me out more, the entrance scholarship into Maynooth that both my sisters got and I was convinced I wasn’t gonna get and I’d be shunned from the family and it was just gonna be awful… so yeah, that went well.

But it turns out that, even after the leaving cert, the magical ability to study still hasn’t made itself known.
And it doesn’t really make sense, because the thing that *really* got to me when trying to study before was that I hated half my subjects, the ones that weren’t sciences. Now I *only* do sciences. And even then I only do ones I like: Maths, Maths Physics, Experimental Physics and Chemistry. Okay I don’t like chemistry but I had to have 4 and I got a nicer timetable with chemistry than with computer science. But still like, it shouldn’t be that bad to study now… but still I’m just like, you know what? Tumblr…

And in a way I wish that I *had* been disappointed with the LC because then the back of my mind wouldn’t be going “ah yeah, but I’ll be grand like…” like chemistry is my first exam so I’m kind of worried about it but instead of studying I’m sitting here going “I thought I knew nothing in the leaving cert and that worked out well didn’t it?” and I know it’s stupid and that college is meant to be *harder* than school so getting into college shouldn’t be my brain’s guarantee that I’ll do ok here but I can’t help it, I just don’t study, I try to start off and then just mess it up and go online or read a book or sleep or something.. it’s so irritating and I know that it’s obviously my fault but I just never change.

I do at least have the consolation of having an okay average in most things for my CA, but still. I thought I was meant to have copped on by now, but I’m still fighting with myself and being stupid and totally not following my current life motto of “Don’t Panic!”

And even now while I should be stressing the voice in the back of my head is there being all blasé and smug and it’s just great.
Hopefully since it’s only first semester I’ll get by, and then for next semester I’m really gonna try get myself to stop being such an idiot.

And attack of the ego here for a minute, but I honestly don’t get how smart people study… I mean I have a lot of very intelligent friends, not to mention intelligent family members and while my sisters are both pretty lazy, I have these super smart friends who work so hard and I’m just sitting there in the background thinking “don’t you get that you don’t need to?” and obviously I’m the one who’s messing up but still I wonder how people do it…
Anyway hopefully I’ll manage, it’s really chemistry that’s the worry, physics and maths should hopefully be grand since I’ve been doing well enough in assignments and whatever in those…
Time will tell I guess.

Starting college in September was really good, I absolutely love Maynooth, my course is pretty good and hopefully my exams that start in about a week will go well for me. I also had the bonus getting some scholarships were definitely appreciated…

Christmas was pretty awesome, as well as juggling clubs and House series 7 on DVD, which were expected, I got a new phone which is totally awesome and was a really nice surprise.

For most of the Christmas period I’ve been looking forward to new years day, not because of the start of 2012 but because it brought the return of the BBC series Sherlock. The first series ended on a cliffhanger and fans have been waiting anxiously since to find out what was gonna happen with the world’s favourite consulting detective and his nemesis. I really really enjoyed the episode, I love how the writers include plenty of references for fans of the books (I especially loved the titles of Watson’s blogposts mentioned early in the episode) but also differ enough that you (or I couldn’t at least) see their conclusions coming. Can’t wait for the next few episodes, I absolutely adore this incarnation of the stories, especially the Holmes/Watson relationship.

This would be the point of the post when I’d mention a resolution for the coming year, but I don’t normally do those, mainly cuz I can never seem to think of one… So that’s exciting…

Anyway 2012 should hopefully be a good year for me, I’m loving college and enjoying hobbies and stuff, I’m reading more than usual which is awesome and there’s no reason for the year not to be good. Also, no leaving cert, definitely a bonus!

I can’t believe the first semester of college is nearly over, it still barely seems like a week since I got my leaving results. I absolutely love Maynooth and I’m really glad I chose the course I did though so it’s all good. The only worry is that I may be developing a slight addiction to hot chocolate, I know, I know, I’m a student, it’s meant to be coffee… but chocolate is so much nicer! There’s a lovely feeling about having a gap in lectures, or a lecture you don’t particularly like going to, and being able to go sit with friends on comfy seats and eat and get a hot drink and just relax. It makes the breaks seem so much better than in school, when the best bet is normally lining the corridors and having to move your feet out of the way every time anyone of sufficient importance walked by.

I’ve been busy enough these past couple of weeks though, with band concert, the run of the show I participated in and other stuff as well. The show a production of The Sound of Music and I really enjoyed being a part of the orchestra for it. I was ever so slightly obsessed with the film when I was about 5 and I’ve also seen a stage production of it, so I was excited to see how it worked in a school. The first major thing to note was that it was a girl’s school.. which meant that any boys cast had to come from other places. There were a few of them, Catain Von Trapp, Max, Rolf and a few party goers and Nazis, but there were no male children. There are meant to be 7 Von Trapp children- Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretel. In this production, there was no Friedrich, there was no Kurt. There was a Frieda, and a Gertie, but eh… that’s not the same!! Especially when one of my favourite lines in the thing is “Kurt, that’s the one I forgot. God bless Kurt” it’s just not the same with Gertie. But aside from a few minor glitches, the show was a great success. There was a lot of ballet dancing in it and it was really annoying because whenever they were dancing I was playing and I couldn’t see but judging by the applause they got at the end, it was good stuff.

As well as that orchestra, I’m really really glad that I went back to my main orchestra, I’m really enjoying playing in it again, even if the rehearsal time of 10am on a Saturday can be upsetting. This year I’m a flute tutor so I’m having the really weird experience of trying to help other people as well as just managing to play the stuff myself. I’m not particularly good at that side of it at the moment but it’s a great skill to try develop and it’s a good atmosphere to try do it in, where there are lots of other musicians to help out when I’m not sure how to best aid the section and stuff. As a tutor one of the main things I do is run the sectional practice that takes up about half an hour of each rehearsal. Despite being in the orchestra for a seriously long time, I’d only ever had to run them once before, so it’s definitely a challenge doing it every two weeks. Basically I get all of the flutes into a room and attempt to work on the current pieces and see if I can help with anything. I now have a lot more respect for the people who have been doing it for ages and make it look really easy because I hate doing it!!
But in general I’m loving the orchestra and I’m already looking forward to going back in the new year. Even though I’m gonna miss the first day back thanks to a stupid exam, joys of college.

The Christmas tree isn’t quite up yet, but as I’ve heard my favourite christmas song (Stop the Cavalry-Jona Lewie) and seen the coke ad, holidays are definitely coming. It should be good, I love christmas… I also get my sister back from france. Which will be cool for about 5 minutes, and then she’ll probably get annoying.
But yeah.. stuff is good… holidays will be fun. Exams in January less so but I should get through ok… I hope so anyway… gotta learn the periodic table though so that’ll be fun… elements song anybody??

Over the course of the weekend I managed to scratch my face taking off a jumper, raise my hand for 4 hours in an attempt to win 6 euro and pride (I came 2nd =( ) absolutely destroy my arms, back and shoulders juggling clubs, accidentally buy myself clubs… I swear I didn’t mean to… watch a guy bunny hop over 3 people, on a unicycle… try to unicycle myself, with seriously failed results, be reminded of how awful I am at juggling frequently… eat some of the nicest garlic bread I’ve had in recent memory… meet up a couple of people I hadn’t seen in years, meet an awful lot of new people, play in more games of gladiators than I can count… Lose in more games of gladiators than I can count. Break my glasses with a club to the face. Watch some absolute breathtaking performances… attempt to learn some new things myself and just in general have a fantastic time.

Since this was my first convention ever, I have no idea how it compares to others, but based on everyone else in the societies’ reactions this one was pretty awesome.
I’m now extremely tired and really really proud of myself for actually doing my maths physics work on time for once.

With the new clubs and new balls that I bought over the weekend I’m definitely going to continue working on my juggling, since it’s just an awesome hobby… But what with the lack of talent I’m also going to have to continue working on the not getting frustrated because I suck thing.
Even this weekend, when everybody was incredibly helpful about everything I could possibly have wanted to ask, it was still kind of irritating to be so bad at the things that people randomly walking by began telling me how to fix it. I mean obviously, I’m going to take everything I was told on board and I appreciate that people are willing to help, but the constant dropping and the not being able to get the bloody clubs to go where you want them to does get really annoying, and not letting that get to me is something I need to work on. But even though I was absolutely leagues behind some of the other people in the room, I know that the experience of that much juggling over 3 days, and just some of the things that I saw were possible over the weekend will help me out, probably in a way that will be easier to see when I’m not exhausted, hungover and in pain.

I’ve had about 7 hours sleep over the last few nights and I have to be up ridiculously soon, when it feels like I could sleep for week, so I’m gonna stop blathering on right about now. Suffice to say, my first juggling convention was a complete success and has made even more intent on getting better at all of this stuff. Pretty awesome…
Also it is my intention to, at some point in the near enough future, start updating this blog more than once a month again and maybe talk about something that isn’t juggling, but you know I’m boring and juggling isn’t… so whatever

The main trigger for me juggling lots is CTYI, since I learnt there it’s always the place I feel like juggling is just required. In my last year there were some other juggling enthusiasts and I was reminded of how much more fun it is to juggle with other people. There were 3 of us who worked together on some tricks and put together a routine for the talent show. The routine itself didn’t go fantastically, I made a mess of it to be honest, but it really didn’t matter. We had a lot of fun learning the new things, and practically everyone had seen us rehearsing the tricks and doing them right anyway.
About 9 minutes into this video.

After CTYI I didn’t juggle as much because it’s much less fun to do it on your own. I made some attempts at learning 4 ball, mainly when I was meant to be studying, and a friend bought me some rings so I worked on them a little, but it got boring quickly and I reverted to more traditional methods of procrastination.

The thing I always really wanted to do was join a juggling society. Since the guy who taught me used to walk around in one of these
And had talked about how much fun being in the juggling society was, I wanted in. In fact I kind of started looking at courses in Galway based entirely on how awesome that shirt design is. However, since I was only heading into 3rd year at the time, I had a bit of a wait. But as soon as I knew I was going to college this year, I was all psyched up to jump right into the juggling soc at NUIM. So on fairs day I immediately spotted the flying objects and headed over to pay my €2 and start chatting to the other people who found the strange mess of throwing and catching (and, let’s face it, dropping) just as amazing and as fascinating as I do.

I spent the guts of 2 hours on fairs day hanging out by their spot, juggling and chatting. Having an instant shared interest that’s so interesting meant that I was able to be loud and forward and CTYI me, in a way that I found harder in college than I initially expected to. I’ve been to 2 juggling meetings so far and I’m already absolutely hooked. I was appointed first year rep of the society, which is a position with absolutely no responsibilities but it still makes me feel involved, and in the 2 sessions I’ve already tried so many new things. Usually when I think about juggling I see so many things that I want to do that I end up doing none of them so I’ve decided that for the moment I’m going to focus on clubs, and I’m going to attempt 5 ball. The clubs might work out, the 5 ball most likely won’t but it’s like the coolest thing ever so I’m willing to devote some time to it, after I learn clubs anyway.
I only messed around with the clubs for 30 minutes or so yesterday, but I plan on focusing on them on Tuesday and the aim is to be able to participate in Gladiators soon. Gladiators is basically last juggler standing where everyone tries to disrupt everyone else, and it looks wicked fun, so I’m hoping to be able to join in with that by the time I go to the Tralee Juggling Convention with the soc in November (which I’m already looking forward to loads because juggling is awesome and a convention would only be more so.)

The one thing about hanging around with people who juggle is that it really drives home how bad I am at it. I mean I know this, I have very bad hand eye coordination, juggling doesn’t come naturally to me and I don’t spent enough time at it to do the really awesome stuff, but like when I see people doing all their stuff it makes me hella jealous. But in a cool way which makes me want to work on my stuff more so it’s all good, plus everyone’s been really nice about giving me any tips that I could possibly ask for so it’s all great.

Another really cool thing about juggling is the potential for awesome photos out of it. My profile picture on facebook has been one of me juggling for ages now. I tried replacing it with my debs photo but like that’s so much less cool!! Of the 200 or so tagged photos of me on facebook, nearly 100 of them are of me juggling in the quad at CTYI. Although it was disconcerting at the time to have the constant clicking which I attempted to keep my concentration (and the intense stares of focus in some of the shots are quite funny) it also meant that I did manage to find one cool photo where I’m actually smiling and juggling. The addition of the coloured balls on the black and white makes it like my favourite photo of me around.

So yeah juggling is just win. It’s the one society I can see myself becoming absolutely obsessed with, because the people seem lovely and it’s just so damn cool. I cannot wait to go to the juggling convention and pick up new skills and basically drive everyone who knows me mad by becoming juggling obsessed. It’s great!!

After a 9am lecture on Friday morning, I was free for the rest of the day, since my labs haven’t started yet. But it suited me fine since Friday night was my debs night, and with my ineptitude for all things girly I needed plenty of time to get organised. Since half my family have left the country, my house has been a bit empty, and I had to call in the cavalry in the form of relatives from cork, so I had someone to take photos of me in my nice dress!

I had an absolutely fantastic night!! It was great to see people for one of the first times in ages and it was so different this year when we’ve all split up, instead of going back to school together on Monday which is what happened last year. It was nice to see the teachers as well and I had a really great time with my date so all in all a fabulous night, but I’m still wrecked two days later!!

As I just mentioned, a few members of my family have left me. With a dad in Switzerland, a sister in France and a brother and a sister in England, the house has been feeling pretty empty for the last couple of weeks. While I’ve got no competition for the computer or the tv anymore, it’s getting to the stage where I miss people, not necessarily the individuals (although it was weird not having them on Friday night I’ll admit) just the presence of all of them.
Simple things like not getting a phone call when Ais is walking home and bored are getting odd, but she’s happy in france and we do at least have facebook, twitter, our blogs, email, text and the occasional phone call to keep in touch. I’m sure that when she’s home at Christmas I’ll be sick of her within a couple of days, but right now it’s weird not having her and my other sister. I’ve gotten pretty used to not having my brother around since he’s been gone since I was 10, but being an only child is a bit weird.

Still I’m sure I’ll cope. Maybe I should propose having another debs to distract me… Friday was brilliant craic!

The last week saw my summer transform to dull as hell to seriously hectic. My countdown to the results really kicked off when I had that unsettling dream in which the school had lost my results, but seemed to remember that I got a D3 in Applied Maths… thankfully I don’t set much store by a dream’s psychic capacities. Despite being fairly confident that the school would not, in fact, lose my results, the fact that the wait was affecting my oh-so-precious dreamtime was kinda of annoying. The wait for the results was horribly torturous and soooo long feeling, but I can’t really focus on it now cuz it feels like an age ago.

Wednesday arrived, despite me being full convinced that it was never coming, and like the eager nerd I am I was awake at 6.30. I managed to continue being comfortable in bed until I heard my parents making a move to go to work. At this point the reality of knowing what I got started to hit me and make me dead nervous again. The painful walk to the school was cut short by a friend picking me up, but then I arrived before we could go in so there was still a horrible “oh come on give me my results already” period, but that didn’t last too long, thankfully.

Opening the envelope was terrifying. After wrestling it from my principal who couldn’t seem to find my name (nightmare coming true like), I wandered off to a lonely corner to open the results and process.
Thankfully I was seriously happy with my results. I had one vaguely disappointing result that should obviously have been outweighed by the 7 I was happy with, but equally obviously, is the one that I’m focusing on.
My most surprising result was definitely English. I’ve always had this problem with english where I think that the poems and the novels and plays and film are all fairly stupid, so I occasionally struggle to write a decent answer referring to them. I did better than I had expected with my B2 in the mocks, and while my teacher said that could easily improve with a better essay, poetry and comparative answer, I would have been happy to see that result on the page. Especially since I’d felt that the real thing had gone worse. It’s impossible to even describe how surprised and thrilled I was to read that I’d gotten an A1 in the real thing. I’m convinced the examiner was after getting some great news when he started to read my script, but I’m definitely not going to query it!!

Overall I was seriously delighted with my results, I’ve equaled Aislinn’s points so that’s family rivalry sorted and as of yesterday, I’ve accepted my first choice course, as well as getting a scholarship… I really couldn’t have wanted much more out of the exams.

My results were only part of the week though. I was thoroughly overshadowed by my mother, who was planning a party to celebrate her 50th. The party was at the weekend, but because lots of people were travelling from various parts of Ireland and England to be here, the house started filling with people from Wednesday, when my brother and his wife arrived. By Saturday, the day of the party, the number of people who passed through the house in the day had risen to something so high that I can’t actually be bothered to count it. Sunday was full of goodbyes as people left to drive home or to catch planes and ferrys. Today the last of the visitors left, so the house feels really really quiet. Luckily, the excitement of my week isn’t quite over.

To cope with the devastating loss of human company, I turned to hanging out with animals. Well, okay, my mum’s bridge partner was going away and needed someone to look after her dog and cat. Since I had nothing else going on I agreed. I’ve only been doing it for two days, but I’ve quickly come to the conclusion that the dog has four main modes of operation:
1) Oh my god, look a person… I have to jump on you and run around in circles and I just can’t handle this excitement.
2)You’re coming towards me, what could this possibly mean for me… I will run away and chase the cat until I feel like this has rectified the situation
3) I’m walking, I’m walking, look how focused I am on this walking thing… oh that smells interesting… hold on here a second, I haven’t investigated this leaf… look!! another dog.. okay I’m over it, I’m walking…
4) NOOOOOO!! Why would you leave me!?!?! I’m lonely now!! How could you do this to me!?? Can’t you see how sad I am?!
Apart from being a little bit dim, the dog is quite fun and easy enough to take care of, although the road from my house to the dog’s house is getting dull!
The cat is seriously uninteresting, so far the only scrap of personality I have seen was when he crowed over his skill at killing a mouse. Way to go cat.

To add to the sheer excitement of life, I’ve also booked a trip to stay with some relatives in England for a week once the dog’s owner gets home. However because I’m seriously intelligent, I’m now going to be out of the country for the days that leaving cert scripts are available to view. I only wanted to look at one, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that now. I’m seriously annoyed at myself for not planning ahead… successful in exams.. but in common sense I still pretty much fail. Life is tough like that.

September is gonna be a busy one for me, as I’ll start college which should hopefully be awesome, and both of my sisters are graduating from their respective courses, as well as moving away, so the house will, no doubt, continue to be in a flurry for the forseeable future,
Coolio.

I always associate that period with The Lord of the Rings as well, because The Fellowship of the Ring was playing one night, either on DVD or on tv, I don’t remember, when I’d just started reading Harry, and I got sent to bed midway through it… After the Council of Elrond I think…

Despite being introduced to both worlds at roughly the same time, Harry Potter was the one that stuck with me. I’ve never made it past the first book in the LOTR trilogy and I only watched the third film after one of my cousins forced me into it, since he was amazed that I hadn’t seen it yet. I agreed to watch it with him, but my strongest memory of the event is us singing “What a feeling” every time they showed that flaming wolves head battering ram yolk cuz one of us had made a stupid joke about heartburn.

In contrast, when the sixth Harry Potter book was released, my family went to the effort of finding a book store that was stocking it in France, waiting for the roads to reopen (the Tour de France was on that day) and driving back to the store to buy three copies of the book (asking us to share would have caused murder). Then refusing to go to the beach or engage in any other holiday activity until we’d all finished. I always felt kinda bad for my dad actually, he didn’t get his hands on the last 3 books (the ones that I had to wait for) until after one of us had finished reading it twice (had to reread to pick up on all the glorious details that I might have missed first time round). That said, he didn’t have to wait too long, we all tore through the books as if they were gonna be taken away from us after the first day.

I can’t blame myself for wanting to be the first to have them read though. I was in school when the fifth book had just been released and one of my best friends spoiled death for me. She’d accidentally found out and decided that telling me would be lovely…
At least when it came to reading the last 2 I was either in a different country to all of my friends or the person the furthest along on the bus going to band camp… except for Ais Who’d stayed up til half 5 in the morning to read it.

Anyway, HP is a huge part of my life. I’ve probably read the books about 20 times each, though it’s obviously less for the more recent ones. But the whole world just seems so much a part of my imagination, it’s hard to think back to a time when I couldn’t picture Hogwarts or Gringotts or some other magical location. It’s even hard to think back to those days when I didn’t know where Snape’s allegiances lay or who’d fall through a giant plothole in the final battle *cough* Tonks and Lupin *cough*.

Really I think I got the best ride possible through Harry Potter. I was young enough when I started, but waiting for the books to be published gave me a chance to be ready for the later books that were much darker in tone. I wouldn’t like to give the books to 8 year old me now, because I know I wouldn’t want to wait until I was ready to finish the series when I didn’t have to, and the final books are a whole different league from the first few, which is understandable as a series progresses.

Also, though they pale in comparison to the books for me, the whole Harry potter series of films have also added to how much the world is a part of my head. Even if it’s just complaining about how they got something wrong or how someone has an annoying voice or how something wasn’t quite how you imagined it, as well as enjoying the good aspects of the films, they create a talking point. They generally cause me to reread the books (the one that’s being portrayed, if not the whole series) and they bring HP back into my mind again.

Case and point- I’m writing this in the wake of the final film, even though I’ve considered doing a HP post previously, it’s only making its way to completion while the film has brought the whole “end of an era” crap into my head. Personally, the era has been over since I found out how it all ended, sat in an unfamiliar room at band camp, because the people who were organising the emptying of the bus realised how close I was to being finished and knew that it’d be cruel to maek me wait half an hour to read the rest. Also all the people who didn’t read the series but were still kinda curious then got to bug me for the answers, it was good.

Mind you, even though the series is over, it’s not like I’ve ever stopped thinking about it.
I mean, it honestly upsets me when I start thinking about George Weasley and how broken his life must have been when he lost Fred. He was generally the quieter twin, the second of the pair. Did he stop talking because he was always waiting for Fred to start the sentence?? How did he manage to go back to the shop with just Ron for company?? I mean, sure Ron’s cool and all but compared to Fred? I’m sorry he just falls short! Well, not literally, since he was taller… I bet George could never enjoy an April 1st again… and how did he cope with having his son (with his wife, who was originally paired with Fred, which is kinda weird too) and calling him Fred, did he want him to be just like the twins were in school, with one of his cousins as his partner, or Lee Jordan’s kid or something? Or did he want Fred Jr to be a bit more like Bill, responsible and stuff as well as being kinda cool??? How did he cope? I just can’t fathom it!

And when I start on this line of thought, yeah, I remind myself that he’s a fictional character. No one ever wrote the rest of his life for him so he’s probably doing just fine. But at the same time he’s been in my head for 10 years, I’m kinda emotionally invested at this point. I think I cried reading 3 of the books, and again rereading them… The characters were well written, they were built up so that I cared about them, and that’s probably one of the things that makes the series so special to me. I wasn’t one of those kids who only started reading because of Harry Potter, I’ve always loved it, so I’ve had a lot of experience with stuff happening to characters, and I’m a total wuss so I’ve had a fair bit of experience of crying away to myself as I finish a book in bed. Less that Aislinn though, she’d probably cry if a dog’s death was written well enough. I think Harry potter was the first time that I can remember honestly thinking about characters beyond their books though. It’s not a world that’s confined to the pages to 7 novels and some companion books, in my mind it’s just there. I have my own opinion on every canon character in the next generation, house, appearance, age… everything I could think of. Well for most of them, for Albus, Rose and Scorpius I can’t make up my mind fully… the point is I’ve thought about it, never really planning on doing anything with the information, just figuring out how it all works out in my head…

I’ve also been known to write god awful fanfiction. I have a total of one story to my name and the last time I read over it it made me cringe an awful lot so I won’t be posting a link here, but it adds to the evidence that I just think about this stuff.

Harry Potter honestly blows my mind. I dunno how different things would be if J.K Rowling had never been granted that idea of a boy who learns he’s a wizard, but I for one am glad as hell that she got it, and that she went on to create such a genius universe… cuz it kinda rocks.

“To the well organised mind, death is but the next great adventure”

Even though the series is over, and no other fans will get quite the experience those of us who waited for it have had, I honestly think that the series will have some serious staying power, because I for one just can’t imagine not having it there…

This has been a fun exercise in “dear lord I’m obsessed” Thank you and goodnight. Lol jk, staying up to wait for the next clue on Pottermore

I nearly ended up missing the show entirely actually. See when I bought the tickets my internet was being seriously dodgy and although we’d agreed to get tickets for Saturday night, I was more interested in getting there at all so I stopped looking solely for Saturday tickets and went into Sunday instead in the hope that my internet would stay stable for one of these to work. While I was sitting at home panicking and frantically trying to get myself the stupid tickets, the tickets for the matinee shows were released. I was stressed at this point and didn’t notice until after I’d bought the tickets that they were for an afternoon show. When I did notice that I had afternoon tickets I assumed they were for the Sunday, since that was the last day I could remember going into. Turns out I was wrong and somehow I hadn’t noticed that as well as saying doors at 12.30 instead of 18.30 they also said the 2nd of July not the 3rd. Thankfully this was all figured out a few weeks ago and I didn’t end up at the door going “what do you mean this ticket is for yesterday???”

So the show itself:
It was great, I really enjoyed it. However there were definitely some areas for improvement.
I’ll start with those so I can end positively.
First off there was no opening act. I dunno why that was because there was one for the rest of the tour and the stage was set up for the act when I got in. So I don’t really know why but there wasn’t one, which meant that the crowd didn’t really get much of a build up before the beginning. Quite probably something to do with the lack of the planned dance troupe, but the show was late starting. There were quotes and pictures showing on the big screens for a while, but after the first few of these got cheers, the atmosphere in the place was definitely “yeah okay that’s great but can we get on with it now?!”

Secondly, Dianna Agron was missing. I was kind of expecting it since I’d read some tweets mentioning her absence, but it was still kind of disappointing. She’s apologised on twitter and her tumblr, saying that she’s sick so like it’s not something she can help. But since her absence means the removal of one of my favourite songs of the series from the setlist (Lucky), it was a bit of a bummer all the same.

Aside from these things though, my overall impression was a great one, I really enjoyed myself. I was a bit worried before going in that I wouldn’t have a great view since I was in seat 1, therefore at the very very edge of the seats (a fact I took advantage of when sending my phone down the gap between the wall and the seats and smashing it on the ground below-it survived nicely though). However, it’s a testament to the good design of the arena that this didn’t hinder my view too much at all. I was fairly near the front (13 rows back) and could see pretty much everything clearly. The positioning also allowed my to appreciate how good the performers were at turning and making sure that they performed to all angles. Barely a song went by where my section didn’t at least some attention from those on stage.

The setlist was really good. There was a nice variety between group numbers and solos and upbeat and calmer and most of the cast members got a chance to shine. In particular, the inclusion of I’m a Slave 4 U allowed Heather Morris to show off her amazing dance moves early on in the show. Also I was pleased to hear Safety Dance, where the audience got to see the dance skills of Kevin Hale, who was in character and in his wheelchair for the rest of the show. The performers had great energy throughout and I don’t think there were any performances that I didn’t enjoy really.

One of my favourite parts was definitely the Dalton Academy Warblers’ section. I absolutely adore Darren Criss and I’ve loved the Warblers since they came onto the show (so much so that the top I bought today is a warblers one, that I unfortunately couldn’t find a decent picture of to link to) so I was thrilled to see them arrive in their nice blazers and all ready to sing. They were great and I love them and just incomprehensible fangirl squealing really… I was also delighted to see Darren appearing again with new directions for the encore songs, and members of the warblers included in the dance to Safety Dance (not gonna lie, I only noticed Riker Lynch because of that amazingly distinctive hair and general aura of awesomeness, but I assume if he was there then others were too).

I’m trying to decide how I feel about the fact that Rebecca Black’s Friday was replaces with Cindy Lauper’s True Colours for the encore. On one hand, I much prefer True Colours so it was great to hear, and it was a good opportunity for Jenna Ushkowitz to show off her vocals, but on the other hand Friday is funny and has Darren Criss in it, which is a huge selling point for me. Also it’s a bit tough on Chord Overstreet to take away both of the songs he featured prominently in, but what’re you gonna do?

Overall I really enjoyed myself, was definitely glad I went and I’d probably be interested in seeing them again if they decided to drop by Dublin in Glee Live 2012.

Highlights:
“I’m a Slave 4 U” – Heather Morris
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” – Chris Colfer (I don’t think I mentioned so far how much I adore him and his voice. He was really great today!!)
“Born This Way” – Full cast
The Warblers in general
“Loser Like Me” – Full cast

So yeah, I’m a happy Gleek!!